


as small as a world and as large as alone

by xenoamorist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Digital Art, Erasure Poetry, Falling In Love, M/M, Poetry, Remix, becoming human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenoamorist/pseuds/xenoamorist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is sent down to Earth. Being human is at once alien and exhilarating, but human emotions come at a cost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [be_themoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_themoon/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Far From His Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/107207) by [be_themoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_themoon/pseuds/be_themoon). 



> **Challenge:** [erasureathon](http://erasureathon.livejournal.com/profile)
> 
> This is a multi-part piece of [erasure poetry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasure_poetry). The idea is to take someone else's work and remove words until you come up with a derivative piece of poetry. I added some punctuation and a couple of words (noted in gold); each part has an accompanying illustration.
> 
> The title from ["maggie and milly and molly and may"](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15406) by E. E. Cummings.
> 
> Mirrored at Livejournal: <http://momentane.livejournal.com/5913.html>
> 
>   
> 

  


**i.**

Castiel does not fit in this world.

(This language  
soft  
a new tongue, like a gift  
so different from Enochian.)

Castiel is a body,  
at first resigned, who in panic  
beats against his new cage,  
suddenly unsure.

                                        let him sleep.

  



	2. Chapter 2

  


**ii.**

Angels do have preferences.  
Castiel has always preferred  
a male form –                                                 
                                                                       
                                        (blond hair  
                                            clumsy  
                                                thin lips)

 

 _Father_

 _the stuff of earth  
    human behavior and movement  
        physicality —  
        so hypnotizing.  
i do not understand it, this urge  
    never really will._

 _(perfect skin. strange things:  
                a frown  
                    a face — )_

Castiel laughs.  
a strange sound, rich and full,  
    beautiful 

 _what other reason is there?_

“In time, you will understand.”                                         

                for a moment, he is out of reach.  
     
                                        “We have work to do.”

 

(When he finds the right one he lets himself  
fall, reckless in his need.  
There is pain, and he knows his power —

 _his future self is screaming  
                              Dean is nearby with closed eyes.  
                Castiel's body crumples, the shape of his wings  
                            etched in the ground._

— Dean comes in the night  
and lets his fingers drift.

Sleep, human and effortless,  
is all he can give him.

                                it will be enough.)

  



	3. Chapter 3

  


**iii.**

"He became too close to humans, and it was his downfall.  
You must guard yourself against such pleasures as he took."

                                                (betrayal is to an angel  
                                              hell and perdition. Angels  
                                            are not meant for emotions,  
                                                                but War)

  



	4. Chapter 4

  


**iv.**

sometimes he desires pleasure.

                    pleasure is – unnecessary.

                                                  silence.  
                                                                       

 

                  What comfort he can give, he should.

 

                    heat                                             
                move  
                  receive                         
                        deliver.

                                (but that was many years ago now.  
                                      There is no one here — )

                              the feeling of something in your hand:  
                              the solidity of it,

                                    pleasure between his fingers,  
                                    the tangibility of his presence,  
                                    like Heaven surrounding him.

                                        He is right, is  
                                            the only one he has —

    the impulses get tangled up and he frowns,  
                                      uncertain.

            "This doesn't feel right," Castiel says.  
                                        their bodies, like this.  
                                     
        "It will," and there is a hint  
    of something in his voice.

  



	5. Chapter 5

  


**v.**

over the years here on Earth  
he loses more.

His human tongue stumbles over Enochian.

        language does not have words  
        for the missing piece —

            (missing by choice)  
                                                                         
                — and his feelings do not have names.  
         
                            Language is a limited thing, in the end.

  



	6. Chapter 6

**vi.**

he is searching for God:  
    a beast lurking in the dark, weary.

                              “Sit with me awhile.  
                              This will be my kind of war.”

 _(I've survived this long)_

  



	7. Chapter 7

**vii.**

Castiel is a warrior, above all.  
Dean forgets this frequently.

    "This doesn't require deliberation."

There are places he needs to be,  
things he needs to be doing.                                     
It is all he can spare from the battlefronts.  
he will be needed back soon.

    "Yes," he says.

        (Dean is among the things  
            not salvaged.)

                    He does not waste time.

                                "Cas," Dean says, and Castiel         
                                                        comes.

 

 _"Thank you."_

 _"Of course," he says,  
                                                        and leaves._

  



	8. Chapter 8

**viii.**

(there is something in her gaze that he finds  
disconcerting. It reminds him of — )

  



	9. Chapter 9

  


**ix.**

he finds that he desires only  
to forget what has passed.

    Fuck God,  
he thinks in a sudden burst of anger.

 

                                  (The alcohol burns his throat.  
                        He shouldn't notice that, but he does.)

  



	10. Notes and Credits

  


**NOTES CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR SEASON 5**

 **general credits.**

The texture in the background is from [this page](http://abduzeedo.com/25-super-useful-paper-textures). The screencaps I used were from [Home of the Nutty](http://homeofthenutty.com/supernatural/screencaps/).

Everything is typeset in [Gentium](http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=gentium), and I used [GIMP](http://www.gimp.org/) for all image manipulation.

 **i.**

What struck me about the opening to the original story was how [be_themoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/be_themoon) incorporated linguistics terminology—I never explicitly said so at [erasureathon](http://erasureathon.livejournal.com/profile), but I'm a linguistics major, so seeing all of that made me geek out pretty majorly.

I incorporated two linguistics-related pieces of imagery in the artwork for this part. In the original, [be_themoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/be_themoon) describes the speech sounds of English as she describes how Castiel is getting used to speaking something that isn't Enochian. I transcribed the parts I preserved using [IPA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipa); I blended those characters into the background, and the things that look like coffee stains are actually four X-rays of the mouth producing four different vowels: [i, u, a, ɑ]; the original image can be found [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cardinal_vowels-Jones_x-ray.jpg).

The original text also has the line _"The words that denote him do not exist in this world."_ , and I chose to incorporate that into the imagery by using actual semantic notation. If there were a word denoting someone—say, Dean, for example—then it would be represented as [[ **Dean** ]] = {Dean}, where the first is the word and the second is the set containing metalanguage variables for the word. To incorporate that line, I showed an empty spot in place of where the word would be for Castiel: [[       ]] = {Castiel}.

 **ii.**

The bottom-most image is by [write_adam](http://flickr.com/photos/astroporn) on Flickr.

Another thing I really liked about [be_themoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/be_themoon)'s original was her exploration of the body and of gender. The gender bits ended up getting discarded while I was erasing, but I preserved Castiel's curiosity and confusion over human bodies and human movements. I ended up twisting [be_themoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/be_themoon)'s stoic Castiel into a Castiel who found wonder in the world and in being human (initially, at least).

I didn't intend for the third section to be sexual, but apparently I've had a couple of people interpret it that way. It's supposed to be just a tender touch, haha.

 **iii.**

The lines of dialogue in the original text refer to Gabriel, hence why I used that screencap of him with his wings out from "Hammer of the Gods". You ended up not really being able to see his wings, though...

 **iv.**

This one is probably my favorite out of all the illustrations. In the original text, Castiel is fixated on hands—he finds them fascinating, and the exploration of different sensations is part of his alienation with the concept of having a vessel and having a human body. In my erasure, I preserved his fascination with hands and touch, but in a very different context.

The hand illustrations in the background are from [_Gray's Anatomy_](http://www.bartleby.com/107/) (the book, not the TV show :P), and I used them over other pictures of hands because (1) dude, hands are sort of creepy by themselves, and (2) I wanted to invoke a sense of Castiel analyzing it and trying to understand, even while his hands are caught up in something emotional and physical.

The illustration of the man is Leonardo da Vinci's [Vitruvian Man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man).

 **v.**

Is my linguistics nerdiness showing yet?

Again, as a linguist, I found [be_themoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/be_themoon)'s take on Castiel and language to be fascinating. I wanted to incorporate a lot of linguistic imagery to reflect his alienation between two tongues. First, I made an IPA transcription of the preserved parts, as I did in the first part.

I also produced a syntax tree for the line _"Language does not have words for the missing piece"_ :

[](http://images.polyglossia.org/lj/erasure11/as-small-extra-02.jpg)

  
Click to enlarge. You can see it to the left, and there's a larger version of it overlaid, but very faintly.

Finally, I overlaid a sagittal section of the vocal tract over Castiel (image from [here](http://www.emory.edu/ANATOMY/AnatomyManual/138.jpg)). The sagittal section of the vocal tract shows the various places of articulation for speech sounds, which once again echoes Castiel's conflict over language.

 **vi.**

Nothing of note, except that I really love the way I was able to find words to twist the image of God into something totally different.

 **vii.**

Another thing I really loved about the original was this grand sense of scale—Castiel's caught up in the middle of a war, and there's this sense of grandeur with the angels involved, and toward the end there's a note of desperation. I wanted to retain that in the erasure and found a way for Castiel to say good-bye to Dean before embarking on a mission.

I actually stumbled upon the background picture by accident while looking for other caps to use, but it's really fitting.

 **viii.**

Jensen has gorgeous eyes.

 **ix.**

This ending was pretty much perfect in the original, and I struggled with the ending because I wanted to just leave the whole thing there, haha. Nothing really of note. Hopefully the storyline that I was trying to set up came through.

  



End file.
